Toki no Eien
by Windswift
Summary: [Time Eternal] Time wears away all things, even hatred. But Yami no Bakura's soul is forfeit, and without this passion he is nothing. So he will continue to fight the Pharaoh, even though he'll always lose.


Much thanks to Ego-chan for setting me straight on my Greek myths!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh, nor do I own any Greek myths... wonder why?  
  
**_Toki no Eien   
[Time Eternal]_**  
  
...   
Japanese:   
touzoku- thief   
ou- king   
yami- dark   
yadonushi- landlord, (parasitic) host, [it's been translated as "king's property" as well, but those who've used the first two translations say that this last one is incorrect]   
sennen- millennium [sen-thousand, nen-year]   
owari- the end   
...  
  
_Once upon a time, a mortal played havoc with the gods. He cunningly captured the god of death, and managed to steal other precious things from the deities. He even escaped his own ending for a time; he came back from the dead to work his trickery once more by evading a proper burial to put him to rest.  
  
But Sisyphus paid dearly for his rashness in life. For all of eternity he was sentenced to roll a heavy boulder up a mountain, only to have it forever come crashing back down again.  
  
And I doubt he ever stopped scorning the gods.  
_  
.  
  
Time has been compared to a river.  
  
It flows onward in one direction, that of forward. It never stops— it simply sweeps over and leaves behind those who cannot comprehend its movements. Some stand in the middle and watch its passing by, like rocks jutting from a stream. Others have drowned, completely overwhelmed by the sheer inexorable force. Still more flounder along, never in the right moment at the right time.  
  
And the dead are completely aloof, walking along the riverbank, because their ties have been severed from both life and time.  
  
However...  
  
_Once upon a time, an Egyptian thief lived in the town of Kuru Eruna, until the city was massacred. The tomb robber swore vengeance upon the pharaoh for this crime, but in the course of all his actions, the touzoku-ou had offended the gods terribly and incurred their wrath.  
  
It became that his soul was sealed in a golden item he had once coveted, an item that had ironically come from the death of his own home. Now he would never pass on to the afterlife, though Ammut would have eaten his heart anyway had he tried. The thief was neither truly dead nor alive, and his soul was forfeit.  
  
He spent three thousand years of eternity in the pendant before he was awoken as if by chance, and a new and most unusual tale began to spin its course...  
_  
.  
  
Sand sifted through his fingers like grains in an hourglass. However, these ran out as they fell back into the sandbox from which they had come. The flow of the hourglass is as eternal as time; you have simply to flip it over and it renews again and again.  
  
Time would continue to forever pour down endlessly, suffocating and wearing away at its victims. Time is the bringer-about of all things; the Renewer, the Destroyer. It snuffs out life, and mellows out of existence all emotions, even hatred.  
  
The boy absently brushed a few stray silvery bangs from his face. His hair was longer than he'd remembered, and it stubbornly flung itself into his eyes again.  
  
He recalled that once upon a time his pale locks had been cut roughly short, back when he had hailed from Egypt. But sentimentality did not suit him; perhaps he missed familiar haunts and rhythms of his past life, but he wasn't sick for home. He couldn't afford that luxury, anyway.  
  
In fact, he'd adapted quite well to a 3,000-year time difference and complete change of country.  
  
He had taken the name of Yami no Bakura— Dark Bakura. He also took his yadonushi, who might very well have stolen the looks of Yami no Bakura himself. Though his host had inherited the right, being the reincarnation of the thief.  
  
And there you had it, two different versions of the same soul, two unique results formed from the identical potential, living in one body, at the same time. But it shouldn't be like that. Yami no Bakura willingly admitted that he was a dead spirit.  
  
However, that didn't mean he would just give in and die.  
  
A gold trinket shackled the thief to the world of the living, and had carried him through the flow of time without ever raising him from the dark and sleep. The Ring he had so coveted and murdered for had become the chains that bound him to his punishment. But he didn't hate the pendant— no, even constricting chains can be useful with the right intent.  
  
And now, instead of having his heart eaten, Yami no Bakura's sentencing doomed him to an eternal shadow until he might awaken. And when he awoke, no matter how he strived, he would be defeated.  
  
Defeated by the very pharaoh he had wronged.  
  
Many would suggest that Yami no Bakura just let go of his millennia's grudge and allow himself to fade into the nothing of the darkness.  
  
But to give in is weak. It is better to be doing something, even if success is unattainable.  
  
"My goal for all eternity is to defeat the Pharaoh. My goal is to steal all the Sennen Items and rule the world," he murmured into the wind that carried away the grains of sand in his palm.  
  
"My goal is very well impossible. As long as I try but never fulfill it, I can continue resisting. Time has worn away my hate, so I must fire it anew. No matter how many times I am beaten, I will spring back because of my vengeful passion."  
  
When one has no purpose, no life, no worth, one is driven to create it for themselves. Hopeless defiance is better than the alternative of succumbing to darkness, shadows, and the very absence of anything.  
  
"And if I win... I should like to taste the freedom that it surely brings."  
  
.  
  
_Once upon a time, a young boy murdered his father in a fit of insanity. He had no idea what he had wrought, and no one could bear to tell him, for he had always been such a sweet child. It would break his heart, and most likely his soul as well.  
  
A mysterious man appeared then, and told the boy that his father's death was because of the Pharaoh's will. Perhaps the man was not in his right mind, or misleading the boy. Maybe he meant inadvertently that the boy's insanity had killed his father, because the insanity had been created from the pain and confusion of the day the father had carved an inscription about the Pharaoh on the boy's back, which the man might have interpreted to be "the Pharaoh's will."  
  
No matter the true intent of the strange visitor's message, the boy believed that the Pharaoh was the cause of his father's death, and so he set out to avenge him by killing the Pharaoh. The man did not stop him.  
  
The boy had wronged the Pharaoh, but when the truth was revealed, the boy regretted his actions. I, however, if given the chance, would make my "mistakes" all over again.  
  
The gods had mercy on Malik, but they damned me. And I still don't regret it. I never will.  
  
Some stories don't end with a happily ever after. But I will keep fighting them until my final punishment, because it is the journey that truly matters, not the destination.  
_  
Bakura Ryou stood up, brushed the sand from his clothes back into the sandbox, and headed home. He would continue to hide in the shadows, to work through his host, and forever plot against the Pharaoh. He would eternally lose, as well.  
  
"But I will continue on for today, too."  
  
**...  
Owari  
...**  
  
_-Windswift Shinju_


End file.
